If all this be not only the obvious intention and tendency of these doctrines, but their apparent and practical effect, though that should be as yet partial and imperfect If, when they are rejected, disregarded, or corrupted, there may be ordinarily traced some corresponding moral defect in actions and dispositions, which are either the efficient cause of such rejection, or result as a consequence from it If their secret and gentle influence has extended to thousands, upon whom the restraints of human law are necessarily very feeble, and by whom the systematic instructions of human wisdom could never be comprehended, as well as to many others of more cultivated intelligence, upon whom the moralist, Strutting and vapouring in an empty school, Had spent his force, but made no proselyte If all these doctrines, precepts, and motives, are singularly adapted to the sympathies, the affections, the miseries, and the frailties of mankind-then we arrive at a very high degree of moral certainty that this religion is true. The more numerous, and the more important, the particulars in which such marks of moral truth meet, the greater this probability becomes, and, by the accumulation of many such indications of truth, the honest inquirer may attain to a well-founded and satisfactory moral assurance, independent of any proof of an historical or critical nature. But this evidence is not intended to be inoperative. It is not given to gratify learned curiosity. If, then, the inquirer is content to look upon it in that light, to regard it as an uninterested spectator, to suffer it to remain as it were external to him, he will imperfectly comprehend that pure and peaceable wisdom which is from above. Pleasure breathes her soft influence over his senses, or the blast of some stern and fierce passion arises, and all this goodly show of argument and reason vanishes into air. The clear conclusions, to which his understanding assented, then fade away into visionary indistinctness, and he turns gladly to rest his mind on the palpable realities of the world. But if, after the first willing reception of the doctrines of Jesus, or of those parts of them most consonant to the understanding, the necessities, or the affections of the individual-no matter upon what ground of reason, or sentiment, or authority, or, we may add, of prejudice and custom, they may have been embraced, their moral efficacy is not simply observed, but felt and experienced; if it be from his own heart, that he, who confesses the faith, draws his confidence that it is from God; if he finds this to be not only a convincing but a growing and germinant evidence, becoming clearer the more it is studied, and more intense the more it regulates the thoughts and life: surely, reason can ask no higher proof. Such a one has a witness within himself, and this is, at least to him, a demonstration. It is, as it were, a kind of personal prophecy fulfilled-a predictive promise which he finds accomplished in his own life; others cannot judge concerning it, but to himself it is more than argument-it is proof, it is conviction. Thus is it, in fact, that these internal evidences of Christianity are those upon which it is most generally, and far most sincerely and fervently, believed; so that the unlettered Christian, who is utterly ignorant of that body of history and learning which attests the veracity of the Gospel narrative; and who, so far from being able to refute the objections of an ingenious opponent, would find it exceedingly difficult, (or not improbably, wholly impossible,) to explain the reasons of his belief to another, may yet possess a ground of confidence in its truth, not resting upon logical argument, yet of a strictly rational character, which, in his mind, could derive but little additional strength from the learned labours of Lardner, the ingenuity of Warburton, or the sagacity of Paley. Doubts which he cannot solve have no power to disturb him. Objections which he cannot refute do not perplex him. He has the certainty and the consciousness of truth, and in this he rests in peace. For him more learned, yet far more ignorant, who has no such intimate conviction of the one great truth, but who can discern speculatively what he knows others to read within themselves, what remains? Let him strive "To seek Those helps, for his occasions ever nigh, Who lacks not will to use them; vows renewed But, above all, the victory is most sure To him, who, seeking faith by virtue, strives To yield entire submission to the law Of Conscience;-Conscience reverenced and obeyed, As God's most intimate presence in the soul, And his most perfect image in the world." Wordsworth. ESSAY IV. The Intention and Uses of the different Kinds of Evidences for the Truth of Christianity. In the two preceding Essays it has been endeavoured to present a sketch of the more prominent of those arguments for the divine origin of Christianity, which may be drawn from that internal evidence of truth which its doctrines contain. These are, in the main, of a nature which causes them to be more frequently felt than advanced, and renders them more fit for the conviction of the individual who comprehends them, than for the exercise of logical ingenuity in contending with the captious and sceptical. Yet they are so strong, that I cannot but believe that it must be more from want of clearness in the statement than of force in the arguments, if it has not been satisfactorily proved, that when divines, philosophers, and scholars, whose opinions are otherwise entitled to high respect, impressed with a deep conviction of the frailty of human reason, and the presumption of theoretical speculation, deny that we have, or can have, any means of judging of the authority of revealed truth inde |